April 4, 2024

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On Friday, Sept. 29, the 2023 Idaho Design and Honor Award Ceremony was held in Boise, Idaho. A big thanks to the sponsors for helping to make this event possible. Congratulations to the winners!

In recent years, the design community has witnessed a notable shift towards embracing mass timber as a primary structural system. From large-scale commercial projects to small residential buildings, the integration of mass timber can bring several advantages to your project.

The Oxford Dictionary defines “collaboration” as “the action of working with someone to produce or create something.” The Intelligent Information Management Glossary defines “collaboration” as “a working practice whereby individuals work together for a common purpose to achieve business benefit.” One can surmise, from these two definitions, that collaboration means “working together” in its simplest form.

In 1975, James “Jim” D. McLaughlin, AIA, founded McLaughlin and Associates Architects. From the beginning, the holistic design approach he takes with clients — through a highly collaborative process of design, review, revision and re-design — creates architecture that is not only sensitive to the functional and emotional needs of the users but also to the surrounding environment.

What followed my college graduation was a straightforward answer: Get a job and focus on obtaining your license. I completed my degree in 2017, wrapping up a six-year journey with a master’s in architecture from the University of Idaho.

The Qualification Based Selection (QBS) has been a part of the professional services industry in Idaho for over 25 years (enacted into law in 1998). Influenced by the federal government’s 1972 adoption of a similar process for federally funded projects, QBS is what state and federal agencies seeking architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, construction management and professional land surveying services are required to follow. And they should be.

When I think about a world without AIA, I see a world where our profession would be significantly more watered down and less relevant. And I see a world where the built environment would be much more utilitarian, boxy and functional, but less meaningful.